Winnemem

The Winnemem Wintu (“middle river people” or “middle water people”) are a traditional people originally located along the lower McCloud River, above the Shasta Dam near Redding, California.

Since 1945, portions of the lower McCloud River have been flooded by Shasta Lake. The Winnemem Wintu are currently in a protracted fight with State of California and the federal Bureau of Reclamation over the proposed raising of the height of Shasta Dam to secure more water for California cities and agriculture; the Winnemem Wintu argue that the proposed higher lake level would flood many Winnemem Wintu sacred sites. From September 12 to 16, 2004, one faction of Winnemem Wintu held a “war dance” as a protest. They claim it was the first war dance held since 1876.

Currently, the Winnemem Wintu are not a federally recognized tribe, although they are working toward federal recognition. Some Winnemem Wintu feel that it is by government error rather than termination that the Bureau of Indian Affairs does not recognize them. And some Wintu representatives, of Winnemem heritage, have been relayed by Interior Officials that it was “Bureaucratic Oversight” that resulted in the entire Wintu being omitted from the list of federally recognised tribes as early as the 1940s.

The Winnemem Wintu are also divided politically into several groups, with members participating in at least three organized groups attempting to obtain federal recognition. In addition, there are several Winnemem Wintu descendents who decline to participate in these groups for various reasons.

The Winnemem healer, Florence Jones (Puilulimet) (1907–2003), was portrayed in a nationally broadcast PBS documentary, In the Light of Reverence, in 2001, as she successfully led her community’s fight to stop construction of a new ski resort on sacred Mount Shasta.